One of my buddies here in town is a fellow photographer with a rather nich photography. My Buddy Ryan truly does play with the stars. He is an astronomical photographer and quite literally controls million dollar telescopes through a computer all over the world in order to do his photography. When he’s not working with those big beauties, he has his own telescope and teaches kids about the cosmos. Well a number of times now we have talked about the business of photography and what it takes to sell images.
The problem every photographer has in the beginning is getting out there. Getting your name out to the public for people to see your work and get attention has always been a challenge. Before the internet was so heavily used it was required to get published in order to have a tear sheet to show to a magazine to get published. That of course always raised the question of how do you get that first tear sheet? Now days it’s a lot easier to get credibility by having a blog or website and then constantly having a presence on Facebook, Google+ or Twitter. Does this all lead to more sales? That’s a mix bag.
Having a well established web presence is essential in today’s world but where does the money come from? Well I put these images up for a reason. Over the years I have spent a good amount of time working with Grizzly Bears up in Alaska, and from the years and thousands of images of them in my files, not one has sold. Now the stories are great and the images always cheer me up to look at, so don’t let dopy here make you think that the images are useless, it’s just requires a special market. As most photographers agree and what I’ve come to learn is that constantly getting published in the editorial market place is not only smart business but required to make a living. How to do that, depends on the story. Everything comes done to the story and the images backing it. But with thousands of magazines out there and every month needing new material, all it takes is a creative mind and some hard work to get published.
The fun thing about this business is it is always changing. Every day something new comes out, a better and more efficient way to work or just something fun. What will be the next best way to get a career started or to make it flurish, who knows? The basis for any business has always been and will always be three things: patience, perseverance, and hard work.
In the Camera Bag:
Nikon D3, 200-400 VRII, TC-17e, on Lexar UDMA Digital Film